Why are you wasting your time with Boilsplat McFarland’s interpretation? He was just a tool for the 15th century version of The Man. I’ll tell you what They don’t want us to know: the Octopus is a secret symbol for the head of a conspiracy linking the Masons, the Mafia, the Illuminati, the CIA, the Templars, the Joneses, the Brotherhood of International Treasure & Currency Holders (B.I.T.C.H.) the last of the Hapsburgs, Whitewolf Vampires, Discordians, NASA, Area 51, Operation Paperclip Nazis, hollow earth Etruscans, priests of the Bermuda Triangle and a clan of pre-teen ninja. Like, I know we’ve been through a lot recently, but seriously… duh?

Namaste,

Julen Ibarra

PS: If you post this letter, please don’t use my name. Don’t even use my S.A.U.C.E. name. Minions of the Octopus may have already infiltrated our organization.”

Oh. My apologies. Ahem…

The following is my rebuttal to this and the other two letters:

While I appreciate the passion each of you has for your ideas on this matter, will not redact my original post explaining the official historic version of the King of Octopus, which indicates the rule of the weird. Anonymous Choir Boy, does your cosmically horrific Cthulhu not embody the very spirit of weirdness itself? And Sister Marinara Linguine, is the Flying Spaghetti Monster not all the more extraordinary for the bizarre sensation of wet noodle that wriggles its way into the pineal gland of his prophets? And Ibarra, (the ___ is already out of the __ with regards to your S.A.U.C.E. name, I’m afraid. Might as well embrace it) B.I.T.C.H. most definitely does not conspire with the Joneses; they resent their inability to keep up.

Do we not share one fundamental belief with regards to the King of Octopus, that power is slippery and terrifying and ultimately ridiculous, whether that power lies dreaming in R’lyeh, in a galactic cauldron of simmering water, or in the secret connections between empires, corporations, cults, lost civilizations, extra terrestrials and crime syndicates?

Terror and bafflement unite us as human beings, and that unity gives us comfort. Together we can find meaning in anything. We can squeeze life lessons out of pocket-sized scribbles that were invented for the gaming table. The world is so much bigger than we can comfortably fathom, and sometime between this moment and forever it will destroy us all. Us all: the most tender of two-word combinations.